


Retaining Faith

by lsularak



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: ? - Freeform, College Years, College era, Comfort, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Matt Recovers For Once In My Fics, Recovery, Religion, Religious Themes, a shitton of religion, foggy tries religion, i still cant tag, like seriously, sad as usual, someone take religious themes away from me, sorta canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 00:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18905446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lsularak/pseuds/lsularak
Summary: Matt never lost his faith in Elektra. How could he? When you are brought up in a religion, you can never justleaveit, you will always remember it. You will believe you made the proper choice, but then your heart will cry out, asking softly“are you sure you made the right decision?”After Elektra, Matt tries to recover. It doesn't start out too smoothly.





	Retaining Faith

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Forces Not to be Reckoned With](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875830) by [lsularak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lsularak/pseuds/lsularak). 



> wow i wrote this with the intent of it being an entire sad kind of extra to Forces Not to be Reckoned With but wow what a shock i actually wrote recovery??? im proud of it and im proud of matt for recovering
> 
> as usual, kinda falls apart the further it goes because i can only start things and never finish them
> 
>  
> 
> as always constructive criticism is welcome!!

Matt never lost his faith in Elektra. How could he? When you are brought up in a religion, you can never just _leave_ it, you will always remember it. You will believe you made the proper choice, but then your heart will cry out, asking softly _“are you sure you made the right decision?”_

Truthfully, the answer was no. Matt could never be sure of anything, not now, not anymore. He was convinced Elektra was the right goddess for him to follow, he was convinced laying down his life for her and being at her every beck and call was the right choice, that he would live forever as long as he had her; but then she left. She left him; poor, broken Matthew, with broken hands and a broken heart. 

He had taken to praying, after that. Mere whispers of sound, soft and pleading; begging her to come back, crying for her to mend his broken heart. He begged it of Elektra, hoping she could hear his prayers, wondering why she would ignore him when he promised to do the one thing he never considered before, just for her. Only for her.

 

She never answered.

 

Matt stopped praying.

 

Matt – broken, bleeding, lonely Matt – was done believing in God. He stopped believing in Him the second Elektra asked it of Matt; and Matt, eager to please, always eager to please her, had done it. He denounced God, he swore he wouldn’t ever pray to any but Elektra ever again; but even after Elektra had left him, he still kept his vow to her. He didn’t pray to Him. No, not when Elektra was still such a fresh wound; pumping his blood out in tandem with his heart.

Matt laid in his bed, prayers unanswered, heart aching, and gave up. 

He had looked for her before that. Before he stopped getting up for classes. Before he stopped eating. 

Before he stopped believing. 

He never found her. There was no trace of Elektra Natchios left behind. Not even a whisper of her; no room, no scrap of paper, not even a hint of the scent of blood and orchids that always followed her like a cloud. Elektra Natchios was a myth, one that only the truly lucky or the truly unlucky were allowed to witness, but never discuss. Matt wasn’t sure which he was. Lucky enough to know her, to love her and be loved in return, but unlucky enough to be _left_ by her. 

Matt decided he was unlucky.

If he were lucky, he thought to himself one day, she would have killed him before she left. As a mercy. She hadn’t. _She may as well have_ , those were the words Foggy would say about her, bitter and afraid of the state in which she had left Matt, _she may as well have killed him, he’s going to kill himself like this_ , he would say with a heavy and aching heart, regret clawing at his chest for having dragged Matt to that party he met her at.

Matt had regrets, too. Not the same as Foggy, not regrets for going to the party. Regrets for not doing what Elektra had asked. Regrets for not killing a man because she had expected him to. Later, much later, it would be concerning to Matt that he was so willing to kill for her, so ready to throw his soul on the line for her. At the time, though, he was more concerned about how he would go about doing it, should Elektra come back and ask again.

She never did.

Which, looking back on it, was probably a good thing. Matt never really recovered from her, he would still go along with her and do all she requested if she so much as indicated she wanted him to; but he had enough time to get himself a little better. Just a little, the lasting effects of Elektra were brutal, no one could ever recover from that, but it was enough, enough to remember why he would never cross that line. Enough time to recover what was left of his belief in God.

Matt was eventually able to get up again.

It took months, months of Foggy prodding and pleading with Matt, begging him to _get up, Matt, please, this isn’t healthy, you’re wasting away, please get up, you can’t leave me, buddy_ , months of having food forced down into a body that no longer wanted it, months of struggling to breathe under weighted lungs. Months, but Matt made it.

On the day that the ghost of a chuckle escaped Matt, Foggy had nearly cried from joy. The day Matt sat up for a whole six minutes, Foggy _did_ cry. The day Matt went to class again, Foggy threw him a two-person party, involving the outrageously expensive pizza Matt loved, Foggy’s movie narration skills, and a little more joyous crying.

Matt slowly went back to normal; or at least as much as he could. He no longer went out; that was too much work, too many chances of running into someone who was just a little too close to her. He would still have days when getting out of bed felt like it was an exercise in futility, but no longer were they month-long stretches. He even stopped freezing at the mention of churches, stopped getting a look on his face like he expected to be struck down for merely being present when it was brought up.

 

Matt went back to church.

 

He didn’t start praying, not yet, not when the last deity he prayed to had left him in the cold, left him bloody and alone. He couldn’t stomach the thought; but he went back to church. He even dared to stay after the service, one day. Just for a few minutes, but he stayed, and that was the important part.

Matt started to believe in God again. 

Slowly, hesitantly, and prone to giving out at slight speedbumps, but he did it. 

He got up in the mornings. He ate, he drank, he showered and he spoke, and he went to classes. Matthew Murdock was no longer the shell of a man left behind by Elektra, no longer just a worshipper left behind by his goddess. He was Matt again; charming, straight-A student, walking legal dictionary, Matthew Murdock. He had survived Elektra, he had made it through and come out so much worse for wear, but he had made it through nonetheless, and, shockingly, in one piece.

He made it through, and he made it through with someone else. He wasn’t bleeding, and he wasn’t alone. He had been bandaged up and dragged through by Foggy, and that was the only reason he had really made it through. Foggy never told Matt that he had started to pray for him. Foggy had thought maybe, just maybe, if he prayed, Matt’s God may help out. Foggy never held any stock in religion, never had a reason to, but with Matt, he wanted to believe.

 

A few months later, Matt started to pray again.


End file.
